Project Phantom
by ToucanOfTheStars123
Summary: What happens when one ordinary cat is taken from WindClan and experimented on? What happens when she comes back? Rated T for some violence, just to be safe. *IN PROCESS OF COMPLETE REWRITE*
1. Chapter 1

The seemingly warm, cozy den suddenly morphs into a large and forbidding place. Opening your eyes to something you don't expect is disorienting and somewhat scary. Although, it can also be exciting when assured of the relative safety of the vicinity.

Opening my eyes, the first major milestone in a forest cat's life, was unexpectedly tranquil. My mother and sister both asleep, I had no one to know that the event had even happened. So I did what every kit does in the middle of the night.

"Snowleap?" I mew, a little too loud. Never having vocalized before, I have very little experience and control over the volume of my speech.

"Not now, Iceclaw..." she murmurs, rolling over. Iceclaw? Who's that?

Deciding that my approach was going to fail to awaken Snowleap but would instead raise the wrath of the other queens, I opted for Plan B: poking.

I jabbed my jet-black paw into her flank. With a start, she opened her eyes, which were very, very blue, and stared at me.

After a moment, she finally makes a noise. "Fallingkit!"

"Yes?"

"Your eyes! They've opened!"

"Yes, I suppose they have. By the way, who's Iceclaw?"

"Oh, Iceclaw? He's your father. Hopefully you'll meet him soon! I'm sure he'd love to see you."

It occurs to me at that moment that I have had a forced emotional attachment for someone I don't know yet for the reason of them liking each other. Interesting, it is, how our social chain works.

"What's outside?" I ask, curious about what it's like not bounded within the already-shrinking boundaries of the bramble-woven den.

"Well, what an adventurous kit," Snowleap purrs, amusement only half of her voice. The other half is near indecipherable. Is it annoyance? Irritation at my questions? "You'll be just in time to see off the dawn patrol.'

I wonder what the dawn patrol is. "OK! I'll be seeing you later!"

My first pioneering steps into a brave new world are enlightening, to say the least. My vision, still adjusting to its newfound usage, cannot see farther then a few tail-lengths in front of me, but what I saw as fascinating and frightening. A huge pile of animals- none cats, thank goodness- stands taller than me. A giant rock, easily ten times as big as any cat I see. And the cats! They're huge! Some stocky, some lithe and slender, they stride powerfully through the camp with purpose and drive. They seem like heroes to my kitten's point of view.

I hear some paw-steps behind me and whirl around to find black kit whose fur shimmers red and gold in the sunlight. My sister, Emberkit.

Scarcely after I register it, I launch myself at her, paws extended but claws sheathed. I don't want to give my sister a scar after Day 1. Just before I reach her, I tuck my legs into myself and roll under her, then lash out at her belly. I sweep her paws out from under her then stand up to view my work.

Emberkit lets out a groan that tells me I may have been a bit too harsh. I nudge her with my nose, but realize a split second too late that I fell for a trap. Her paw catches me on the nose, and I pretend to lose my balance, but then jump up and swipe at her ear as she tries to swipe at my underside. I feel something warm under my paw, and see with horror that she's bleeding. It's small but it's there. I sheathe my claws and determine my course of action.

"Snowleap!" I yowl loudly, seeing if I can get something to put on Emberkit's cut.

"Yes, Fallingkit?"

"Emberkit and I were tussling, and she got a cut!"

"Oh, poor Emberkit! I'll go get Starlingfeather and Breezepaw. They'll patch you right up."

"It wasn't Fallingkit's fault, Snowleap," Emberkit mews. It's the first time I've heard her speak, and I find myself listening intently to capture her unique voice and inflection and commit it to memory. It is soft and melodic with a soft harmoic undertone. Her voice, in a way, sounds like her fur. I am shaken out of my trance as she continues. "I came up behind her and feigned a swipe and she, well, you know." She swaps a glance with Snowleap, something I don't know about but want to, especially if it's about me.

Snowleap admonishes me with a cuff on the ear and a sharp vocal reprimand. "Fallingkit shouldn't have had her claws out to begin with. You will go to the nursery and sit there until I come and get you. Do you understand?" I nod quickly. "Go."

Scampering to the nursery takes only a minute. I stretch out on the moss, which is old and needs to be taken out. The bracken is prickly, but it barely registers with me.

"Fallingkit?" an unfamiliar voice meows very softly.

"Yes, who is that?" I ask, somewhat abrubtly.

"My name is Stormfall," he said. "I just wanted to say that those were some pretty impressive moves back there. I doubt that a seasoned warrior could do that with such short notice."

Even as he praises me, I detect the uneasiness and smell the fear of something that he's holding back from me. It seems like everyone is keeping something from me, even Emberkit.

"Thank you," I accept his words with a cordial bow of the head.

He turns and flees the nursery. Is he afraid? Of me? Nothing is fitting together and it's only the first day of me being a part of the clan.

While I might be young, I am certainly not naïve. I know about our social system and that small problems should not be brought to the attention of the leader, but this does not seem to be a small problem. The only thing keeping me from demanding what the squirrel is going on with me and this clan is my mom. My mom is a well-liked cat, and my father is a senior warrior. It's a mystery to me why I am so different.

Although I'm more mature than he average kit, I'm still that young, and after a long day of exploration and wonder, I'm tired. But as I drift off to sleep, one question bounces around my head:

Why am I such an outsider?


	2. Chapter 2

I am carefully looking through the fresh-kill pile for some food when I feel my ear being swatted. Actually, swatted is an inappropriate way of putting it. It was like an owl had flown down and tried to rip my ear off.

Having proved my reputation, even as a kit, for ferocious fighting on short notice, I turn around with my claws out. No use fighting a battle without proper equipment. I swipe at the cat's chest then whip around and jump over their back, using my hind claws as both leverage and damage.

After I complete my semi-aerial maneuver, I actually turn to catalog who the offending feline is.

"Buzz off," I growl to my attacker, who is otherwise known as Mudpaw. His orange-brown streak that turns his right eye into a grotesque masterpiece of colors. His eyes glow dully in the morning light.

"Oh yeah?" he returns my challenging glare and rises to his full height. I am not small for a kit - in fact, I am larger than most of the kits around here, almost as big as the smallest apprentice, and I am only a moon and a half old - he still stands at least twice as tall as me.

"Buzz off," I repeat in a more menacing tone, "If a kit can trounce you in battle, how can you ever expect to become a warrior?"

I have hit his Achilles heel. He's the most senior apprentice, but all his littermates recently became warriors and he's still an apprentice. It serves as a useful comeback and a satisfactory display whenever he runs across his father, Rustpelt.

He turns to leave, save for one parting comment: "Watch your back, Clumsykit."

Clumsykit is my nickname around camp because my real name, Fallingkit, was given to me because I apparently kicked some moss into Snowleap's face when I was born. I like to think of Fallingkit as a name that honors my ability to bring on the enemy's downfall. No such wonderings for anyone else, they just accept the name for what it is and have generated a nickname for me that really irks me. Especially when Mudpaw uses it.

I shake it off and go back to the task of examining breakfast. I pause, irritated that my sojourn has been interrupted once more, when I hear hissing and spitting along with some words that would raise Snowleap's hackles coming from near the apprentices den.

"She's just a kit, mouse-brain! Leave her alone!" I recognize the voice as Leafpaw's. She's very protective of the kits, especially me. It puzzles me, because the other Clan members seem to be severely averse to me.

"Yeah? You and what army?" another voice sneers. Mudpaw. I should have known that piece of fox-dung would be arguing with my favorite person in the clan.

"Remember the warrior code," Leafpaw says in a quiet, dangerous voice.

"She's been agitating me since the day she set her wretched paw outside of the nursery!"

"If you were nicer to her, she would reciprocate! Oh, are those big long words to big for poor Mudpaw? In other words, leave-"

I never get to hear the last part of the sentence that she was going to say, because Mudpaw leaps at her, claw extended. Leafpaw is an excellent fighter, considered to be graduated early, but size is a clear advantage here. Mudpaw has about 10 pounds on her, and her exemplary skills are outmatched. It seems as though Mudpaw is going to kill her, until a voice rings out.

"What is going on here?" the voice, loud and authoritative, attaches itself to a body as the host shoulders his way through the crowd. A collective sigh of relief goes through WindClan. It's Gingerstar, our very large, very broad-shouldered leader.

He raises his burly frame to its full height and stares them both down, Leafpaw gazing serenely into his orange eyes, whereas Mudpaw seems to shrink back, knowing that this was his fault and that this would impact his career even further.

"Who started this?" Gingerstar demands.

"Mudpaw was bullying Fallingkit, and I confronted him about it. He was the one who started the fight," Leafpaw calmly explains.

Turning to Mudpaw, Gingerstar continues to interrogate them. "Is this true, Mudpaw?"

Mudpaw seems to shrink in his pelt. "Yes," he says miserably.

"Come with me," Gingerstar says curtly.

Mudpaw slinks along next to him, avoiding the furious glare he gets from Rustpelt. This will be an interesting spectacle later.

I turn and head back to the nursery. It is almost sunhigh and I need a nap. Dang kit body.


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm four moons old, Snowleap! I can groom my own fur!" I snap at my mother, who is attempting to lick me clean.

"You're simply a mess!" she replies. "You're going to go see your, er, father, and you need to look nice." I carefully note the hesitation on the word "father."

"Too bad! He can see my lovely fur all messy! That's how I normally am!" I yell back while bounding out of licking range.

Four torturous moons have passed and I am impatient to be an apprentice. My mother, overprotective and yet somehow malicious in her intents, irritates me to no end. Emberkit and Leafpaw are my only respite, playing with me, and in Leafpaw's case, protecting me from the malevolent Mudpaw. A full moon after his punishment for the instigation of our conflict, he was still an apprentice. This not only fueled his determination to become a warrior, it also inflamed our long-standing feud.

At four moons I am almost as big as Swiftpaw, the second-largest apprentice to Mudpaw. I've begun to participate in in-camp battle practice, as tensions have been growing with RiverClan. I have a pet hope that Gingerstar will make me an early apprentice.

As I stare at a small mouse I unintentionally pulled out of the fresh-kill pile, my thoughts are interrupted when Gingerstar yowls the familiar words from TallRock.

"Let all cats old enough to hunt their own prey gather under the TallRock!"

Although I am not old enough to hunt yet, I eagerly bound over to the TallRock and watch Gingerstar as he prepares to speak.

"Mudpaw, would you like to step up to the base of TallRock?" Gingerstar says.'

Mudpaw practically bounces up like a kit. "Yes!" he says, "I mean, um, yes."

"Then I, Gingerstar, leader of WindClan, call upon my warrior ancestors to look down on this apprentice. He has trained hard to understand the ways of your noble code-" I roll my eyes, knowing full well that that part is not true, "-and I commend him to you as a warrior in his turn. Mudpaw, do you promise to uphold the warrior code and to protect and defend your clan, even at the cost of your life?"

Mudpaw nods solemnly. "I do."

"Then by the powers of StarClan, I give you your warrior name. Mudpaw, from this moment forward you will be known as Mudfur. StarClan honors your fierceness and determination and welcomes you as a full member of WindClan."

And as newly minted warrior's head met the ginger cat's muzzle and Mudfur licked his shoulder, the Clan around me chanted "Mudfur! Mudfur! Mudfur!" There were only two cats I noticed not chanting: Leafpaw, and myself.

Just as he was lifting his muzzle from Mudfur's head, he paused. "We have one more thing to discuss today." My heart quickens and my breathing becomes shallow as he says "Keep an eye out for RiverClan warriors. They've been getting a lot more aggressive lately."

Even though my assumption was foolhardy, I still feel more than a little disappointed. My tail droops as I see Mudfur's smug grin and his sly look, one that only ever shows up when he has something up his sleeve. I want to find it out, and I hope that it will get in trouble.

Leafpaw treads up to me on light paws and in a ghost whisper says "I hope that RiverClan gets him soon."

I agree wholeheartedly. He shouldn't be a warrior, and I wouldn't put anything past him.

Hope says that what Mudfur has planned is good for WindClan. Experience says that it's not.


	4. Chapter 4

The day starts out like any other day in WindClan.

The sun wakes me up, filtering through the spiky walls of the nursery. I stretch my long limbs and yawn, accidentally hitting Mosskit's head in the process.

I step around her, Sweetkit, Brownkit (her siblings) and Willowfall (her mother). They're only a half a moon younger than me, but I'm already at least twice their size. Emberkit is a dwarf next to me as well. Leopardpaw, while a newer apprentice, is the largest one in the den, and I'm almost as large as her.

As I always get up early, I am out of the nursery just in time to send off the dawn patrol. I nod goodbye to Leafpaw and her mentor, Orangeleaf. In a rare event, Gingerstar is joining them on this jaunt out of the camp.

"Keep an eye on the camp for me," Gingerstar meows to Sootwhisker, our deputy.

"All right," she amusedly mews back. I know what she's thinking, that we son't have to do anything. There's no reason for Sootwhisker to be at all worried.

They exit the hollow our camp resides in and I settle down to wait for them to return. I choose a mouse, which is fat and juicy, it being greenleaf and all. I ponder what I will do to keep my sanity in the last moon of being a kit. I even think about what my warrior name will be. Fallingleaf. Fallingfoot. Fallingfur. None of them work for me.

All of a sudden, my thoughts are interrupted by an unearthly noise.

"Help!" it seems to yell. "Help me! We were attacked!"

My fur stands on end. It can't be. My minds stops functioning as a bloody feline figure becomes visible over the ridge.

I'm staring at the mangled form of Leafpaw.

"Leafpaw!" I hear a half-strangled yowl coming somewhere from my left. It's Poppyheart, Leafpaw's mother.

Orangeleaf appears over the rise. "Gingerstar needs help! He's gravely injured."

I can see that just beyond her is another cat. Gingerstar. He is limping along, but just barely. Orangeleaf rushes to catch him just as he falls over.

The next few moments pass in a blur. Cats of all ages rush up to the wounded. They are carried into the medicine den. I sit there, numbed to what's going on around me until I feel a comforting tail on my back.

"It'll be okay," Emberkit whispers into my ear. It sounds as though she's trying to convince herself as well as me.

Every cat in the camp snaps to attention as Breezepaw exits the nursery. His expression is grim. A little voice tells me that a cat has died, but I wonder which one.

Breezepaw's voice carries loud and clear across the Clan. "Gingerstar is dead. He was on his last life."

WindClan gasps and nearly every head turns to Sootwhisker, whose face is frozen in shock.

Breezepaw dips his head in respect to the new leader. "As the apprentice medicine cat, I will prepare some travelling herbs for you and Starlingfeather. You will leave at sunhigh."

This is almost too much for me to take in at one time. All I can do is pray to StarClan that Leafpaw will be okay.

* * *

The rest of the bad news comes a day later.

Even though it's the middle of greenleaf, it's pouring rain the day we bury Leafpaw. Poppyheart is decimated. She never expected this. But then again, who does?

Sootstar says a few words, how she will be forever a young, healthy, vibrant apprentice in StarClan. All I can think of is how she will never get her warrior name. She was only a moon or two away from being graduated, but we were anticipating the time when I would be made an apprentice, too, and we could talk late into the night with each other and Emberkit.

She'll never be what her life goal was. Leafpelt. Leafheart. Leafclaw. Leafear. Leafbreeze. All names we discussed but will never come to fruition, all the dreams we dreamed but will never happen. It's heartbreaking how much Leafpaw lost when the fox attacked her, Orangeleaf and Gingerstar.

The protecter of kits is gone. The apprentice bursting with potential is gone. Leafpaw is gone.

All I can think about is what this world has lost.


	5. Chapter 5

The wounds are still fresh in the Clan the day I am promoted to apprentice.

"Let all cats old enough to catch their own prey gather under the TallRock!" Sootstar yowls from it's summit. She's a bit of a reckless leader. It's been one moon and she's already lost two lives, one from a RiverClan skirmish and another from the fox that killed Leafpaw and Gingerstar. I'm guessing that Rainfoot, our new deputy, will be Rainstar by the time I'm a warrior.

"Emberkit, Fallingkit, would you like to come up to the front for a minute?"

We bound up to the front of the throng of cats, knowing that this is the day we've been waiting for for moons.

Sootstar continues, "Fallingkit, you have reached the age of six moons, and it is time for you to be apprenticed. From this day on, until you receive your warrior name, you will be known as Fallingpaw. Your mentor will be Stormfall. I hope he will pass down all he knows on to you." Stormfall proudly shoulders his way up to me and stands by my side as Sootstar prepares to finish my ceremony.

"Stormfall, you are ready to take on an apprentice. You had received excellent training from Hawkfur, and you have shown yourself to be intelligent and patient. You will be the mentor of Fallingpaw, and I expect you to pass on all you know to her."

Sootstar pauses in her speech and looks thoughtfully at Emberkit.

"You, Emberkit, have reached the age of six moons, and it is time for you to be apprenticed. From this day on, until you receive your warrior name, you will be known as Emberpaw. Your mentor will be Nightleap. I hope she will pass down all she knows on to you."

Nightleap struts up to take her place adjacent to Stormfall, me and Emberpaw.

Sootstar finishes her part of the ceremony. "Nightfall, you are ready to take on an apprentice. You had received excellent training from Goldtail, and you have shown yourself to be loyal and kind. You will be the mentor of Emberpaw, and I expect you to pass on all you know to her."

I touch noses with Stormfall and Emberpaw does the same to Nightleap as the Clan chants "Fallingpaw! Emberpaw! Fallingpaw! Emberpaw!" around us.

"Ready to see something other than the interior of the camp?" Stormfall asks me, somewhat facetiously.

My heart skips a beat. "Yes!" I shout. I've been cooped up in camp for over six moons and I've been itching to get out since day 1. That's the thing that's kept me sane throughout the trials of my kithood, from being shunned to Mudfur to Leafpaw.

I scramble up the short path to the ridge. When I reach the top, my breath is stolen from my lungs by the sheer beauty of it. Stormfall, Emberpaw, and Nightleap catch up to me and stand at my side as they let Emberkit and I absorb our home.

The air smells of dew and grass and earth. The sky is a blue as my eyes, and as I duck my head to lick down the only white patch of fur on my otherwise jet-black pelt, I catch sight of a large rabbit bounding on the moors in the distance. Adrenaline jars its white-hot path through my veins, and my lanky legs twitch of their own accord.

Stormfall gives an amused purr. "I know what seeing the moors is like for the first time. It was the same for me, too. Unfortunately, we have to learn to hunt before we can get those rabbits."

I notice that Emberpaw and Nightleap have already reached a smallish hollow ringed by a few scraggly bushes. I realize that every plant on this moor, grass aside, is as windswept as my father's fur after a hunting patrol.

I shake my head to rid myself of those fanciful thoughts. I'm an apprentice now! I follow Stormfall down the ridge and before long I am facing Emberpaw in a sister-vs.-sister sparring match. She narrows her violet eyes, and I do the same. She feints to the left, but I see through her maneuver and take advantage of her somewhat exposed neck to swipe at it. Claw sheathed, of course.

She is thrown off by this, and I seize her confusion to roll under her and claw her belly. I roll out the side, but not fast enough for her to miss me. Her paw connects with my ear and I go sprawling.

"Enough!" Stormfall meows, and we spring apart, best friends once again. "Emberpaw, good job with the ear swipe. Fallingpaw may have an amount of raw talent when it comes to offensive moves, but you have an excellent sense of timing. Fallingpaw, you need to learn some defensive moves, polish up those offensive ones and learn how and when to use them."

We nod our heads in unison.

"As for those defensive moves, Fallingpaw, you need to keep your tail in..."

The rest of our day is spent listening, learning, practicing, falling, then listening again. By the time I get back to camp, I am bruised, battered and sore, but can't wait to do it again.

As we curl up in our brand-new nests of moss, I hear the rustling of the only other apprentice, Ashpaw, and I realize that I am officially the largest apprentice.

I calm my mind and slow my heart, and whisper "Good night, Emberpaw."


	6. Chapter 6

A few moons later, we mourn the loss of Sootstar.

"She fought bravely against the RiverClan patrol, but she lost her last life anyways. May she live forever in StarClan," Rainstar, her replacement, mews from the TallRock.

I didn't know Sootstar that well, and she wasn't a particularly good leader, so I don't have much grief to deal with. Not that I'm entirely apathetic to it, but I had almost nothing to do with her.

They bury her the next morning.

* * *

"Up! Up! Up! We're going to launch an attack on RiverClan!" a harsh voice meows.

Beside me, Emberpaw blearily stirs, lifting her head to spot the disturbance then jumping up and following Nightleap out of the apprentice's den, closely followed my me, Brownpaw, Sweetpaw and Mosspaw.

"Remember your defensive moves. This is when you'll need them most," Stormfall growls to me. We're looking eye to eye now; I'm almost as tall as him.

"Aye, Stormfall," I say. I'm the most senior apprentice now, I'll be a warrior soon. This battle proves the perfect opportunity to earn my warrior name.

"Let's go, then." We weave our way around the silent stream of cats flowing across the moors. Rainstar signals us to halt for a moment, not far from our camp, and keens, a sound that shatters the darkness and carries across the moors, haunting and pure. The rest of the warriors and apprentices join in and we sing like a demon choir.

Rainstar finishes his customary battle song and we continue our race across the moors. After twenty or so minutes, we reach the RiverClan border. Rainstar again stops us and we halt, our hearts racing and our breaths hanging in front of us as icy clouds. Snowleap and Iceclaw stand together, their tails entwined. Cats mate for life, I recall. They are a perfect example of that.

Our final creep to the RiverClan camp is deathly silent. We are all preparing to breath our last breaths, to say our last words, to see our last sights. We are preparing to die.

Then suddenly, Rainstar leaps out of the bushes onto the island. WindClan follows him closely. Before an instant has passed, RiverClan streams out of their dens and engages us in battle.

My match is a gray tom who I recognize as Talonscreech, a relatively new warrior who is not the strongest fighter. He hesitates for a second, and I take that moment to launch at him, angling my claws for his throat. I hit, but do not get the major blood vessel there. I roll under his belly, my signature move, and scrape it there. Then it's not there. I spin around then realize my mistake: he's behind me.

By the time I register that, he's already on top of me, flipping me over and diving for my throat. I claw his belly in a vain attempt to stop him. He bites me, then notices how weak I am and lets me go to die. I lay limp, hearing the battle rage around me. I half-crawl, half-drag myself out of the camp and into the river, where I watch the water run red with my blood. I manage to get onto the bank before I black out.

* * *

_"Fallingpaw?" a voice murmurs to me in the dark embrace of sleep._

_"Yes?" I reply. My eyes are heavy, soheavy, and I can't open them._

_"Fallingpaw, it's me."_

_"Who's me?"_

_"Leafpaw."_

_I jolt upright and wince. My neck is stiff and sore, but I don't know why. In this dream world, nothing is clear except for Leafpaw. Her blue-gray tabby fur glints with the light of a thousand stars, and I know then that I am in StarClan._

_"Am I... Dead?" I ask, my voice wavering._

_"Yes," Leafpaw says, her eyes closing briefly._

_"I won't see Emberpaw ever again? I won't get my warrior name?"_

_"Yes you will. You're going back. You've left your body for a time, and you'll be back in time. You killed Talonscreech, Fallingpaw, just like he killed you- by bleeding out. Rainstar will give you your warrior name when you go back, along with Emberpaw."_

_"Really? Do my friends think I'm dead?"_

_"No, you're still on the banks of RiverClan."_

_"Your Clanmates are coming, but we're not done!"_

_"It's OK, I can go back later."_

_"I just wanted to give you your prophecy."_

_"Prophecy?"_

_"The cat with a paw in both worlds will force the boundaries to break down. Six will become one, and the only one who can save you will be the cat with a paw in both worlds."_

_"What?"_

_"Goodbye, Fallingpaw..."_

* * *

I blink open my eyes and nearly black out for the pain. My neck feels like someone has split it open, poured venom, then roughly shoved it back together.

"She's back! She's alive!" a joyful mew sounds. I recognize it as Breezefall's, who has taken over as medicine cat since Starlingfeather died.

"Fallingpaw!" Emberpaw's voice echoes off the walls, choked by emotion. "They thought you were dead! You were dead! But you're alive!"

"We were about to prepare your body when you started breathing again," Breezefall solemnly informs me.

"Well, good-" my voice breaks off in a midst of coughing, and to my horror, there is blood on the ground and in my mouth.

"Careful, don't talk too much," Emberpaw admonishes me.

I silently nod and relax my head. It's going to be a long, long road to recovery.

* * *

Rainstar looked down upon me from the TallRock. "I, leader of WindClan, call upon my warrior ancestors to look down upon this apprentice. She has trained hard to understand the ways of your noble code, and I commend her to you as a warrior in her turn. Fallingpaw, do you promise to uphold the warrior code and to protect and defend your Clan, even at the cost of your life?"

"I do," I replied.

"Then by the powers of StarClan, I give you your warrior name. Fallingpaw, from this moment forward you will be known as Fallinglost. StarClan honors your determination, spirit and intelligence, and we welcome you as a full warrior of WindClan."

Around me, WindClan erupts into a fury of chanting. "Emberwing! Fallinglost! Emberwing! Fallinglost!"

Emberwing sidles up to me and says: "Fallinglost. I wonder where that came from, huh?" We both know. Rainstar had said I was almost lost, and that that would be reflected in my warrior name.

"We have one more ceremony to perform today," Rainstar says with a twinkle in his eye.

He makes Fogkit, Rosekit, Greenkit and Fernkit apprentices. Better yet, I am given my very first apprentice: Rosepaw.

"I know you can have an apprentice, and after that wound you got, you deserve it," Rainstar says when I ask him about it later.

Things are going well for me. But when I sit vigil with Emberwing, my neck still aches and Leafpaw's prophecy echoes in my ears.

The cat with a paw in both worlds will force the boundaries to break down. Six will become one, and the only one who can save you is the cat with a paw in both worlds.


End file.
